The 4th of July holiday weekend is upon us, and with it (in between hot dog-eating contests and firecracker-induced brushfires) we’ll celebrate the anniversary of our great country’s birth and independence.
The nature of independence, of course, has me thinking about marketing. In most cases and contexts, independence is a very good thing. For your marketing team, it most certainly is not.
If your marketing department is operating independently, it’s likely not aligned with the needs of other departments and the business at large. If your marketing department executes completely independently from the sales department, it’s unlikely you truly understand what it takes to find, influence and close more business.
And it’s less likely that what you’re doing, what you’re producing, is being used or having a positive, revenue-generating effect.
If you prefer the independence of doing what marketing has always done, or what you believe marketing should do, then you’re ignoring and missing the opportunity to create the inter-dependence necessary for marketing to maximize it’s value on sales, customer and revenue growth for your organization.
Marketing cannot be independent. It can’t set it’s own agenda. It can’t create collateral or leads or strategies in a vacuum, throw them over the wall to sales or other organizations, and how to be successful.
Independence and isolationism have no place in successful marketing today. Your success is dependent on not only interacting regularly with the groups around you, but driving a truly integrated strategy that blurs the lines between departments, between sales & marketing, towards a more consistent, customer-centric approach.
It doesn’t matter that this course of action is harder. What matters is that it’s necessary, it works, and it’ll make your contributions far more effective and appreciated – by other departments, customers and shareholders alike.
Enjoy the holiday!